"Speak to a man in his second language, you speak to his head. Speak to a man in his first language and you speak to his heart"~ Nelson Mandela

Social Media Networks Do Away with Gender

So I was recently accused of putting Arab women into a convenient box, but honestly that has never been my intention. You may think this if I was using old media demographics to form my blog posts, but looking at this video closely you will see that trying to understand demographics—age, gender, race—online is becoming impossible.

A few surprising facts about social networks today were also discussed:

Instead of straight demographics, social media networks have like communities in which people from across demographics can see what they ‘like’ saying a lot more than what their age or gender is.

Women are leading the way for social networking. Much like here in Jordan, globally, women spend more time on social networking sites. This being said because social media is changing the way old media functions, therefore women are playing a larger role in the formation of social media and old media forms. The speaker also suggests that with this increased usage comes an end to stereotypes and generalizations made in global media, and more women being hired at media companies.

And so, my interest in how Jordanian women use social media and how they interact online may have a larger impact on the local and global media stage than I anticipated. As social media networks and ‘likes’ on Facebook can tell analysts much more about political, religious, and health views than ever before.